Show I Popular Classic Airs May Become Music Well Liked I I I By PROP EDMUND GURNEY I i HE I I inimical instinct of the people is norniallv sound though it I T gels but little chance of true cultivation J sujipoo thnt everybody every-body who is niiioli interested < in n subject and on the lookout for temps of evidence about it is occasionally slnrtlcil by finding find-ing Hint these go for HIP most t part unobserved and that what he thought commonplaces are received ns paradoxes Now at this moment n house painter is humming sotto voce irciulcls Bohna Wedding Jfarch outside my door a bakers boy in the street is whistling La ci Durum and u Guriimn band n little farther on has just been playing the march from Scipio to the obvious edification of the surrounding nursery maids Yet I believe that at nil events tho first two fads would have gone unobserved oven by ninny of those who know the tuner tune-r ndmit of course a great deal of low taste both in and out of the streets and < 1 do so in complete conformity to the argument that pleasure must be the criterion of music using the word low to imply a feeble and transient enjoyment of things which arc found as n pure matter of experience experi-ence not to appeal to those nmistomed to a greater and more permanent enjoyment en-joyment lilt I would observe that the people have to take what they can get Would that hey got more chances and Unit one had not to walk through miles and miles of in park sunny Sunday afternoons without encountering en-countering a single band All musicians must know thc sensation of being haunted even by tunes which they absolutely dislike and though I do not pretend thnt street boys disliko the bad tunes they mechanically whistle no one with any experience of places where the trial has been made cnn doubt thnt they would sing and whistle good tunes and do when they get the chance of knowing them infinitely more con amore Good music seems to make its way like water wherever channels arc open for it nnd if I have dwelt chiefly on simple melodies it is only because circumstances not necessity have hitherto in great measure limited limit-ed the peoples chances to these It is impossible to mistake the look of joyful welcome on many faces when for instance the glorious themes of Hccthovons concertos flush forth again and again now from the solo instrument now from the orchestra |